Movie Tour: Transformers – The Dark of the Moon

We finally got to take our oldest nephew out for his birthday. We take our older niece and nephew out for lunch and a movie for their birthday. His birthday was at the end of April, but he told us that he wanted to see the new Transformers movie that came out at the beginning of July, so we were more than happy to wait so that he could see what he wanted.

Plot Summary

In the third installment of the Transformers series, we discover that the lunar race was merely an opportunity to get to the crash site of a ship from Cybertron. The wreckage is found and secrets are kept locked away from everyone, even the Autobots themselves. Upon the discovery of this news, the Autobots go up to the moon to retrieve the contents of the wreckage – Sentinel Prime and a weapon that he designed that was supposed to help end the war on Cybertron. Outside of that, Sam (Shia LeBeouf) is having trouble finding a job, even though he helped save the world twice from the Decipticons and won a medal from the President., but he has no problem replacing Mikaela (Megan Fox, who talked trash about Michael Bay during the last Transformers movie), who dumped him, with Carly (played by Victoria Secret model Rosie Huntington-Whiteley, who fills the “eye-candy” role in Fox’s absence).

Review

Dark of the Moon gets us a little closer to what made the first movie so much fun. There isn’t the complicated plot and deep mythology of the second movie, and there is plenty of action to keep the characters running, literally. There are a couple of decent plot twists – one that I expected, and another that I didn’t. You know my standards for these type of movies – lots of action and a lot of things blowing up – and Dark of the Moon didn’t disappoint in those areas. However, it did in other areas. I felt like the slow motion shot was overplayed. By the third or fourth time, I was already over it, and the movie wasn’t. Also, I’m not a big fan of eye-candy for the sake of eye-candy, and I can’t help but think that Bay really wanted to get back at Fox, so he… lingered… on Carly a bit too much. Now, I will not deny that Rosie is a beautiful woman, but, come on, we get it without it having it thrown in our faces over and over again. That’s been one of my issues with the entire series, and it is really an issue in this installment. There a 30-45 second shot of Carly during the final battle with all kinds of explosions taking place behind her. It has no purpose whatsoever. Even our nephew said, “What the heck was that all about?” Indeed, Mr. Bay, indeed.

Recommendation

All in all, I enjoyed the movie. Those two things really did bug me, but not enough to make me want to never see it again. Eventually, I’ll get it on DVD and place it next to my other two Transformers movies, and occasionally, I may even watch it. Unless you are a major fan of the series, there’s no rush to see it. We didn’t see it in 3-D, and I don’t feel like we missed out. Save your money there. Rent it, wait for it to come on Netflix or pick it up at your local DVD resale shop. Don’t go out of your way to see it any time soon.

Best Part

As with the other two movies, Sam’s parents provide the comic relief, and they are hilarious. They aren’t in more than four scenes, but they are definitely one of the major highlights and always good for a laugh.